Ask Graeme?

[Fred Mumford]

After an octorun is completed and we get two new contestants, it always seems to be that the one sitting in the champion's chair loses the game.

Obviously, it doesn't "always" happen, but is my hunch broadly correct? Why wouldn't it be roughly 50-50? Or is it?

[Gavin Chipper]

When they have two new contestants I think they use a reserve player (who likely just missed out on passing the audition) who normally lives locally. Maybe they're put in the champion's chair?

[Philip A]

25 returning contestants in Series 92 now. Are they running out of contestants?

[Graeme Cole]

Which contestant has the longest consecutive run of numbers rounds scored? I.e. no scores of 0, for any reason.

Dylan Taylor is the record holder, having scored in all 60 of the numbers rounds he played.

[Graeme Cole]

I'm not sure if a similar question has been asked off the top of my head, but has it been worked out whether the random number generator does a good impression of a uniform distribution and whether the small numbers all come up equally (given that they must be pre-selected to some extent as there aren't 20 on display). With the small numbers, because there's few enough of them, it would be enough to just see the frequencies of each one. With the generator a more sophisticated statistical technique may be required. But you could just separate the targets into blocks of 20 or 50 or whatever to check each block is equally represented within reason.

I've never seen any evidence that the random number generator isn't sufficiently random, except for that brief period in 2017-18 when Sam Prouse noticed it was repeating a previously-seen sequence. I'm not really sure how you'd test if its distribution was within the limits of what you'd call "truly random".

Doesn't look like there's anything dodgy going on with the selected numbers, either.

Frequency of each of the selected numbers, for all of 2025:

1: 455
2: 434
3: 445
4: 432
5: 447
6: 442
7: 450
8: 438
9: 455
10: 456

25: 404
50: 362
75: 394
100: 386

Frequency of each of the selected numbers, since January 2020:

1: 2580
2: 2585
3: 2574
4: 2570
5: 2613
6: 2597
7: 2594
8: 2656
9: 2565
10: 2616

25: 2193
50: 2147
75: 2167
100: 2175

Frequency of each of the selected numbers, for all episodes for which we have details since 1982, including the Nasty Numbers specials S26 and S29:

1: 12395
2: 12204
3: 12389
4: 12278
5: 12203
6: 12283
7: 12427
8: 12327
9: 12361
10: 12277

25: 9032
50: 8756
75: 8977
100: 9002

12: 3
37: 4
62: 1
87: 1

[Graeme Cole]

Has any contestant ever scored 18 points for a loanword?

I don't have any way to search for this systematically, but here's one example: Nick Deller in series 28 with CROISSANT.

[Graeme Cole]

How many episodes have there been that have pitted two contestants both with verbs as surnames against each other?

Not searchable, I'm afraid. I don't have a big list of all verbs.

[Philip A]

Which contestant has the longest consecutive run of numbers rounds scored? I.e. no scores of 0, for any reason.

Dylan Taylor is the record holder, having scored in all 60 of the numbers rounds he played.

That, combined with his 6 small games, is an insane demonstration of mental athleticism and cognitive function in competition.

He maxed 56 of them as well, and in the other 4 he was one away. Only 12 points dropped!

[Graeme Cole]

It makes me raise another question: which regular series has the lowest percentage of conundrums solved, barring tie-breaks? What about longest run of unsolved conundrums barring tie-breaks?

In more recent years, Series 19 has the lowest percentage of non-tiebreak conundrums solved. Only 35 out of its 66 conundrums (53%) are known to have been solved.

In more recent years, Series 75 came close - 60 of its 109 conundrums (55%) were solved.

At the other end of the scale, Series 48 had 95/110 conundrums solved (86%).

Series 7 shows up as only 36% solved, but there are so many details missing for that series that I've disregarded it.

The other question was already answered in March.

[Graeme Cole]

In terms of percentages, how many episodes of Series 90 featured a returning contestant? How does this percentage compare to Series 91?

These figures may be inaccurate, because the process for determining whether, say, "Terence Newnham" and "Terry Newnham" are the same person isn't perfect. The Terence/Terry case I spotted myself and fixed the database so he was included, but I may have missed some others.

Series 90: 49 out of 118 episodes (41.5%) featured a returning contestant, including all seven finals matches.
Series 91: 24 out of 125 episodes (19.2%) featured a returning contestant, which included only one quarter-finalist (Christine Smith).

Series 92 saw many high-performing returners. 81 out of 125 episodes (64.8%) featured a returning contestant, including all seven finals matches.

[Philip A]

In terms of percentages, how many episodes of Series 90 featured a returning contestant? How does this percentage compare to Series 91?

These figures may be inaccurate, because the process for determining whether, say, "Terence Newnham" and "Terry Newnham" are the same person isn't perfect. The Terence/Terry case I spotted myself and fixed the database so he was included, but I may have missed some others.

Series 90: 49 out of 118 episodes (41.5%) featured a returning contestant, including all seven finals matches.
Series 91: 24 out of 125 episodes (19.2%) featured a returning contestant, which included only one quarter-finalist (Christine Smith).

Series 92 saw many high-performing returners. 81 out of 125 episodes (64.8%) featured a returning contestant, including all seven finals matches.

That last stat - not sure that’s good tbh. I posted numerous stats about S92 returnees elsewhere too.

Think we do need more new contestants.

[Graeme Cole]

In light of recent events:

How many rounds have had 2 or 6 vowels (and indeed other non-standard numbers (0, 1, 7, 8, 9) if these values exist)?
How many of these instances have slipped through since 1995 (and the 3V 4C rule)?
If a manageable number, could these please be listed?

All time, for rounds where we have the necessary details:

1 vowel: 5
2 vowels: 218
3 vowels: 33144
4 vowels: 41525
5 vowels: 2635
6 vowels: 9

Two of the 1-vowel selections were in Episode 574 (Matthew Francis would have picked both those rounds). Another two 1-vowel selections were in Episode 650 (both Philip Hardingham). The other 1-vowel selection was in the Masters episode M84 (I'm not sure what the picking order was for these episodes).

From Series 30 (3rd July 1995) onwards:

1 vowel: 0
2 vowels: 13 (Edit: turns out this includes the Noel's House Party Gotcha episode, so 12 "real" rounds)
3 vowels: 27195
4 vowels: 37835
5 vowels: 2472
6 vowels: 1 (R13 in episode 8536)

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm surprised by the 3 v 4 vowel stats. My impression is that while Apterites pick 4 vowels, pretty much everyone else picks 3 most of the time.

Great work as always.

[Philip A]

Has any contestant ever chosen 3/4/5 vowels and 6 small, 1/2/3/4 large at least once? In other words, has any contestant chosen every selection possible?

[Tom S]

Has any contestant ever chosen 3/4/5 vowels and 6 small, 1/2/3/4 large at least once? In other words, has any contestant chosen every selection possible?

I did- though that's including the finals. Didn't want to have a regular selection- so mixed it up in the hope that it would make me more unpredictable to play against.

[Philip A]

Has any contestant ever chosen 3/4/5 vowels and 6 small, 1/2/3/4 large at least once? In other words, has any contestant chosen every selection possible?

I did- though that's including the finals. Didn't want to have a regular selection- so mixed it up in the hope that it would make me more unpredictable to play against.

I probably should have asked how many contestants. But yes, finals and Champion of Champions all count as well as prelims.